[ and that -- that prompts a slow drawn breath. Not a sigh, just wariness. There is much he does not speak of, for very good reason. The better memories were the worst, and if there is anything to set him on edge where little else phased him, it remained, solely, in that.

So he waits, until she is seated first, patient in the decorum he knew best and really that says more about just exactly what had shaped him most. ]

No. I was a Lord then, and in her employ. It would look poor if her bodyguard did not eat at least as well as she did, do you not think?